Episodes

James: "You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." ( James 2:24 ) Paul: "For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law." ( Romans 3:28 ) Mike Kapler and Joel Brueseke from th...

I lost all my drive and passion to write following my crash and burn in 2009. As a pastor who spent years in performance-based Christianity, I hit a wall of performance in 2009 and I went from full-on to full-stop overnight. ...

In this episode I talk through some additional thoughts and recap some topics from last week's episode with Joel Brueseke on the law abolished. In addition to what I talk about in this episode, my biggest question concerning ...

Joel Brueseke of the joins me in this episode for a conversation about the Law of Moses, as we explore the important question, "Has the Law of Moses been abolished in addition to being fulfilled?". While most within the grace community would agree...

If there's one thing reading church history has shown me, it's that we're swimming (or drowning) in 2,000+ years of religious traditions that we've been told are a necessary to stay in a good place or in good standing with Go...

Did you know that at least 3 times in the Old Testament book of Joshua, we're told that under Joshua's leadership, the Israelites rested in the Promised Land? But when we come to the New Testament letter to the Hebrews, we're...

The New Covenant, the cross, Jesus, church, grace, faith, a believer's identity, false ideas about the Bible and God's view of us, Matt's new podcast and YouTube channel, and Matt's story are some of the topics Matt and I tal...

A friend reached out to me recently asking about what's commonly called once saved, always saved. The mixed messages we hear in institutional religious settings can cast doubt on the sufficiency of Christ's once-for-all-time ...

This episode is the last of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’v...

This episode is the fourth of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I...

This episode is the third of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I’...

This episode is the second of five episodes exploring William Tyndale’s use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. In this series I...

This episode is the first of five episodes exploring William Tyndale's use of five words in his translation of the Greek New Testament into English, that resulted in his death at the hands of church leaders. The five words ar...

How did we get to where we are today in an institutional church culture so firmly planted in the centrality of the pastor? This episode is a look at a few key moments in the history of institutional Christianity that have bro...

Greetings everyone! This last-day-of-2021 episode is an unscripted rambling by yours truly about the dawn of a new year, what is ours in the New Covenant, the importance of having an Old Covenant/New Covenant distinction when...

My wife Susan joined me on this episode as we delved into our thoughts together about institutional Christianity and institutional religion and the effects and impact it leaves on people. Our view of institutional Christianit...

This is the concluding part of what I introduced last week concerning how modern institutional religion requires pastors to be something we don't see in the New Covenant scriptures. Church tradition tells us that Timothy was ...

I received a note from David, one of the listeners to this podcast, who asked for my take on Timothy as a pastor and how the function of modern church pastors differs from the function of their New Testament counterparts. I f...

Let's talk about institutional church and the ekklesia because one of these is not like the other. Did you know Jesus never used the word church? And yet the word church is all over our New Testaments. How did it get there an...

Let's talk about obedience. Doesn't that sound fun? I've found it to be true that in almost every institutional church setting, the topic of Christian obedience in one form or another, dominates the landscape. It's peppered t...

Let's continue talking about pulpits and institutional religion's obsession with the pulpit and how it's been elevated to such a place of prominence in institutional Christianity. Charles Spurgeon said this concerning pulpits...

This is part one of two on the subject of pulpits and institutional religion's requirement of keeping the pulpit at the center of its Sunday events. I have a lot to say about this but my laptop battery ran down as I was recor...

Let's talk about some of the pitfalls of professionalizing Christianity and relegating our time together to the professionals we've hired in our institutions and relying on them to do what all of us should be doing. The body ...

Let's talk about how institutional religion often uses the small group setting as another way to promote itself by making the group agenda-driven and insisting that the agenda remains at the heart of the group. Whether it's t...